Genshin Impact has been a massively successful game globally, earning developer miHoYo billions in profit. However, multiple voice actors have come out and alleged they haven’t been paid for months. The allegations came from two prominent voice actors, Corina Boettger who voices one of the most popular NPC Paimon, and Brandon Winckler who voices numerous minor character roles, and also has a credit in HoYoverse’s, Honkai: Star Rail.
Boettger made the allegations on their Twitter, stating they’re owed “thousands of dollars,” in the delayed payments, affecting them severely that they’re struggling to pay rent. Boettger also reiterated that they’re unsure where the blame lies, miHoYo or the studio that handles English voice audio, Formosa Interactive.
Brandon Winckler made his allegations more direct, specifically Tweeting that he emailed those at miHoYo five times without any response regarding delayed payments. Winckler pointed out how Genshin earns miHoYo a hefty revenue, and that the pay for their voice actors are exceedingly low. Winkler stated on his Twitter he has no plans to work on Genshin Impact anymore.
Earlier today HoYoverse provided a statement to Marco Wutz of Video Games: “We truly regret to learn about the ongoing situation. Genshin Impact values and respects the work and effort of everyone involved, and we support our voice actors to claim their proper due. We have made payments to our recording studio on time, and we immediately urged the studio to pay our voice actors from our past payment. Meanwhile, we are also seeking alternative solutions. And we will keep you posted on further developments.”
Both Boettger and Winkler pointed out that they are not under a union contract, stating that if there was a union for voice actors, there would be better pay and issues like this wouldn’t be happening. “Many non-union productions have this problem, I’ve waited anywhere from four to eight months for payment, and even then, it isn’t much to ask. $1000 here, $500 there, and it adds up fast.” Winkler Tweeted. Both voice actors stated the increasing need to be unionized with SAG.
This comes in larger focus to the recent events within the entertainment industry, in the beginning of May this year, the Writers Guild of America voted to strike, leaving hundreds of film and television studios without writers. Overnight, the SAG-AFTRA voted unanimously to strike, with thousands of actors halting even more productions. The strikes stem from disagreements over inadequate pay, the use of AI, corporate greed, and protections for workers. While voice actors in film and television are a part of SAG-AFTRA, video game voice actors are not as widely represented due to a lack of an established industry.